Managers after cash at the window had better beware the trapdoor

It has been suggested that there should be a transfer window for managers. Why bother when there is already a trapdoor? Either way it seems that the onset of the January window is fast becoming a Becher's Brook for managers whether their teams are straining for success or struggling for survival.

In either case the scenario is the same. When a manager finds that players he bought during the summer have not produced the desired effect he pleads for more money to strengthen the team for the latter half of the season. But increasingly those who provide the cash are having second thoughts about backing the manager's second thoughts. So the manager grumbles about it to the media, his bosses take umbrage and, if he is not careful, decide that what is needed is not so much a new team as someone new to pick it.

Jose Mourinho's estrangement from Roman Abramovich at Chelsea was not entirely due to the Russian owner's desire to be better entertained. The relationship was not helped when Mourinho, having lost John Terry for two months following a back operation, found himself in need of an experienced centre-back but was denied funds for a replacement.

Billy Davies left Derby County this week having added a plaintive postscript to what turned out to be his final game in charge, last Saturday's 2-0 home defeat by Chelsea, when he begged the club's new chairman, Adam Pearson, to release money for a January spending spree which would leave him better placed to keep the team in the Premier League. Yet Pearson had already made it clear that "investment in the team needs to be allied to fiscal prudence" and cannot have failed to notice that Davies's biggest summer signing, Robert Earnshaw, for whom Derby had paid a club record £3.5m, had made only two starts in league games. Cash may yet be forthcoming at Pride Park but Paul Jewell, a salvage expert at Bradford City and Wigan, will be spending it.

A manager can get away with ignoring a major signing if his team keep winning. Mourinho's decision to leave Andriy Shevchenko on the Chelsea bench for much of the time after the Ukrainian striker had arrived at Stamford Bridge from Milan for £30m may have been because he was not the manager's choice but had as much to do with the fact that Didier Drogba was doing the business anyway.

The reluctance of Rafael Benítez to give Fernando Torres, at £26m Liverpool's most expensive buy, a regular place in the attack has been more puzzling even allowing for some autumn fitness problems. Rotating the strikers is all very well and may keep legs fresh for the spring, yet Liverpool - although still unbeaten in the Premier League like Arsenal - are six points behind Arsène Wenger's leaders and that poses the question of where they might have been had Torres played more often. Certainly the quality of the goal with which he restored Liverpool's lead against Porto at Anfield on Wednesday added further weight to the argument.

Not that the 2,000 Liverpool fans who marched in support of Benítez before the match were much concerned with his rotary habits. The possibility of a Liverpool manager being sacked by distant American owners over a disagreement on transfer policy was enough to bring out the banners. Nevertheless Tom Hicks and George Gillett surely have a point in insisting that, when it comes to the January sales, Benitez should go with what he has got. On past evidence all that would happen if two or three more players arrived at Anfield would be a fresh blur of faces on the carousel.

Benítez said the owners had told him to concentrate on the playing side, leaving transfer negotiations to Rick Parry, the chief executive. In fact this was the way Liverpool used to do things when they were winning the league 10 times in 15 seasons. Contracts were sorted out by the then chief executive, Peter Robinson, while Bob Paisley and later Kenny Dalglish looked after the football bit.

Hicks said recently that the £40m spent last summer had been with the Premier League foremost in mind According to Hicks, "this squad is good enough to win things. It should be winning things." There is not much sign of June in January there.

So far no manager has peered through the January window to better effect than Harry Redknapp, who on his return to Portsmouth two seasons ago made a series of signings that kept Pompey in the Premier League, a fact unaltered by Redknapp's arrest this week on suspicion of corruption. Any talk of double-glazing means nothing until something is proved.